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  Sisi’s two Bavarian “ladies,” who were no longer required in Vienna, were given precious parting gifts. Their place was now taken by a personal household. It was headed by Countess Sophie Esterházy, née Princess Liechtenstein, a close confidante of Archduchess Sophie. At the time, she was fifty-six years old—seven years older than Sophie; a puritanical woman with punctilious respect for outward form, she was, for all practical purposes, assigned the job of governess to the young Empress. From the first moment, Sisi took an intense dislike to Countess Esterházy, who was viewed critically by other contemporaries as well; for example, the Emperor’s aide-de-camp, Weckbecker, noted, “on the one hand, she treated the young Empress a little too much like a governess, while on the other, she saw her principal task as introducing the incipient sovereign to all sorts of gossip about the families of the high aristocracy, for which the Bavarian Princess naturally could summon up only slight interest.”5

  Elisabeth had more confidence in her chief steward, Prince Lobkowitz. Nor did she dislike the two young ladies-in-waiting, Countesses Paula Bellegarde and Karoline Lamberg. Sophie made it clear to Sisi from the outset that, as Empress, she would not be allowed to establish any personal ties with these young women. Sisi’s “household” consisted of a secretary, a lady of the bedchamber, two lady’s maids, two chambermaids, one valet de chambre, a porter, four footmen, one houseman, and a chamber woman. This staff, of course, was for the Empress’s exclusive service. The Emperor had his own household, far larger and entirely separate from that of the Empress.

  The chronicles report that on the very same evening, “the lovely Princess was gracious enough to show herself, in charming condescension and friendliness, to the loudly cheering populace”—she appeared on the large balcony of Schönbrunn Castle. That night, a large court banquet was held with all the splendor of the old empire.

  From her arrival in the afternoon until late into the night, the sixteen-year-old, exhausted from her journey, was constantly under the eyes of complete strangers, not all of them well disposed toward her. The cordiality that had surged her way from the many who waved at her from the shore had given way here, in the circle of the court aristocracy, to a rather skeptical curiosity. After all, Sisi had not yet grown into the full beauty of her later years; she was ungainly, intimidated, not at all what the Viennese court might have imagined when they thought about a future empress. The exertions of this day of arrival, however, were only the beginning.

  For the very next day, April 23, the traditional solemn entrance of the Emperor’s bride into Vienna was celebrated. This entry began, not at Schönbrunn Castle, but at Maria Theresia’s old town palace, the “Favorita” (the present Theresianum), which the imperial family hardly used at all otherwise. The solemn ritual of dressing for the event took hours—that, too, was something Sisi would now have to grow accustomed to. Many coaches carrying family members and the elite of the court appointees drove from Schönbrunn to the Favorita in the morning and assembled there for the solemn entrance, for which a highly complicated ceremonial was prescribed.

  When, in the late afternoon, the moment had finally arrived for the bride and her mother to get into the state carriage pulled by eight Lipizzaners, Sisi was wearing another one of her fancy gowns—pink threaded through with silver, with a train, garlands of roses—the new diamond tiara in her hair. Her exhaustion was plain to see; within the glass coach, she wept ceaselessly. And instead of greeting a beaming imperial bride, the Viennese forming a cordon of honor welcomed a sobbing young girl sitting next to an equally intimidated mother of the bride.

  The piebalds’ manes were plaited with red and gold tassels, their heads sported tufts of white plumes, and their harness was gold-embroidered. Two footmen in full regalia, white-wigged, walked alongside each carriage door and each horse. The bride’s coach was followed by the state coaches of the chief stewards, of the chamberlains and palace ladies on duty, and of the privy councillors. Each was drawn by six horses and was attended by footmen preceding and alongside the carriages.

  Everything down to the last detail was arranged according to rank at court. Six “imperial and royal court trumpeters on horse,” court forerunners and pages, the mounted guards, the auxiliary bodyguard “with colors and drums,” grenadiers, cuirassiers, and court gillies escorted the sovereign bride, who hardly knew how to appreciate the magnificence all around her.

  When the procession neared the city walls, the artillery salvos fell silent, and all the bells in the city began to peal. Every house along the route was decked out with bunting and flowers. All along the way platforms had been erected for the curious onlookers. The most striking element of the procession was the elegance of the Hungarian magnates. They wore their national costume, resplendent with gold and precious stones. Even their servants’ liveries were of unparalleled elegance, as were their state carriages, pulled by six horses each. The Swiss envoy, Tschudi, wrote that “except for the Congress, such extraordinary splendor was never yet seen” in the capital of Austria.6

  Less than five years had passed since the Revolution had raised barricades in the exact same spot where the stands for the onlookers now stood. “Freedom of the press,” “constitution”—these were the demands the Emperor had not met. The revolutionaries were executed, had emigrated, were jailed, or had come to an arrangement with the absolutist government. The ominous sign “Property of the Nation” had long ago stopped hanging from the Hofburg. Absolutism was celebrating its triumphs with an imperial wedding—and the people cheered.

  Nevertheless, the Emperor had seized the occasion of the joyful event to make some gestures of conciliation to the revolutionaries of 1848. The Wiener Zeitung of April 23 printed an official communiqué pardoning over two hundred “prisoners condemned to confinement as a consequence of political crimes.” The sentences of another hundred were reduced by half. Additionally, a general amnesty was declared “for all crimes of lèse majesté and offenses against the public order” and the “treasonable activities” of 1848 in Galicia and the uprising that broke out in Lemberg in November 1848. The state of siege was lifted in Hungary, Lombardy, and Venetia.

  The Emperor’s most valuable gift to his impoverished nation, however, was the sum of 200,000 guldens, intended to “ease the existing state of emergency” on the occasion of his wedding: 25,000 guldens for Bohemia, particularly for the inhabitants of the Erzgebirge and the Riesengebirge and the poor of Prague; 6,000 guldens for the Moravian factory districts and the poor of Brno; 4,000 for the poor of Silesia; 25,000 for the poor of Galicia. The Tyrol received 50,000 guldens for grain purchases and for those injured by the vine disease in the southern Tyrol; Croatia, 10,000; Dalmatia and the Coastland, 15,000 each; “my capital city, Vienna,” for the support of “the working class and the poor, who suffer most especially from the current rise in prices,” 50,000. The provinces of Hungary and Northern Italy, where there was unrest, received nothing.

  A veritable shower of medals rained on meritorious officials of the monarchy. That all these proofs of favor were linked to the wedding and the person of the new Empress makes the warm reception accorded the bride even more understandable.

  Whether Sisi took any notice of these gifts is highly questionable. Sobbing, she arrived at her new home, the Hofburg in Vienna. As she descended from the carriage, she stumbled because her tiara caught in the doorframe. This embarrassing mishap occurred in full sight of the entire imperial family, solemnly assembled to receive her outside the Hofburg. Nevertheless, Archduchess Sophie found little Sisi “ravissante”—enchanting—as she noted in her diary. “The demeanor of the dear child was perfect, full of a sweet and gracious dignity.” In the Amalienhof apartments “the imperial and royal generals and the officers’ corps, along with the male royal household and the ladies,” were waiting to pay their respects to the illustrious ladies and gentlemen. With this, the ceremonies of the day came to an end, and Sisi had to prepare for the climax: the wedding on the following day, at seven o’clock in the evenin
g, in the Augustinerkirche.

  In every church of the monarchy, divine services marked the occasion of the imperial nuptials. On the morning of the great day, a solemn mass in St. Stephen’s Cathedral was attended by “the elite of all stations.” A collection taken up to mark the occasion of the wedding was so amply subscribed that forty couples married on the same day as the Emperor were given a wedding gift of 500 guldens each—about twice a worker’s yearly income. In many cities and towns, needy children were clothed, the poor were fed, firewood and bread were distributed. The Austrian national anthem had a new second stanza added:

  An des Kaisers Seite waltet,

  Ihm verwandt durch Stamm und Sinn,

  Reich an Reiz, der nie veraltet,

  Unsere holde Kaiserin.

  Was das Glück zuhöchst gepriesen,

  Ström auf sie der Himmel aus!

  Heil Franz Joseph, Heil Elisen,

  Segen Habsburgs ganzem Haus!

  [At the Emperor’s side, / Linked to him by tribe and feeling, / Rich in charm that never withers, / Rules our lovely Empress. / What fortune has praised most highly, / Let Heaven shower on her! / Hail Franz Joseph, Hail Elise, / Blessings on Habsburg’s entire House!]

  There was a proliferation of poetic invention concerning the “angelic nature” and beauty of the new Empress. Besides thousands of festive broadsides in various languages, eighty-three commemorative pamphlets in Elisabeth’s honor were published in 1854, among them sixty-one in German, eleven in Italian, two in Magyar, four in Czech, two in Polish, and one each in Serbo-Croatian, Latin, and English.7

  They made an uncommonly handsome couple as they were joined in the Augustinerkirche, bright as day with the light of 15,000 candles and draped in red velvet. The historians vied with each other in describing the splendor that stretched as far as the eye could see: “All that the utmost in luxury, combined with the greatest of riches and truly imperial splendor, is able to offer dazzles the eye here. In particular, in regard to the jewels, one can surely say that a sea of precious stones and pearls billowed past the marveling eyes of the assembled crowd. Especially the diamonds seemed to multiply a thousandfold in the glow of the sumptuous illumination and made a magical impression by the wealth of their color.”8

  The Belgian envoy sounded rather complacent in his report to Brussels: “In a city where not long ago the revolutionary spirit wrought so much devastation, it was not an idle act to unfold the entire splendor of the monarchy.”9

  The Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Othmar, Ritter von Rauscher, performed the marriage ceremony with the assistance of more than seventy bishops and prelates. At the moment when the rings were exchanged, a battalion of grenadiers mounted on the roof of the church released the first salvo, which was followed by a thunder of cannons, proclaiming that the Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria had been transformed into the Empress of Austria. The seemingly endless and flowery wedding address earned Rauscher the nickname “Cardinal Plauscher” (blabbermouth).

  On the same occasion, Rauscher, a confidant of Archduchess Sophie, could not forego referring to 1848 with abhorrence: “In the first bloom of youth, he [Franz Joseph] threw himself against those demonic forces that threatened destruction to all that humanity holds sacred. Victory followed wherever he trod.” From now on, he continued, the Emperor would also be the paragon of Christian family life.10

  When the religious rites had finally been weathered, and the ceremonial procession had returned the bridal pair to the Hofburg, the machinery of court protocol was set in motion. The victorious generals of 1848 were the first to be admitted to an audience with the imperial couple: Radetzky, Windisch-Graetz, Nugent, Jelačić.

  In the audience chamber, the ambassadors and envoys were waiting. Foreign Minister Buol had the great honor of introducing each one to the new Empress. After completion of this long audience, Their Majesties moved to the Hall of Mirrors. There the ladies of the diplomatic corps were waiting in full regalia to be introduced to the Empress.

  “Thereupon Their Majesties with the Imperial Family and the Royal Household on Duty proceeded to the Hall of Ceremony in order to receive the congratulatory delegation.” Empress and Emperor “were gracious enough to chat with those present. The chatelaine made the introductions: ‘The ladies responsible for the palace and the living quarters; further, the royal and imperial first steward and the gentlemen of the royal household.’ Thereupon the ladies were led up for the kiss on the hand.”11

  At the sight of so many strangers, the young Empress panicked and fled to an adjoining room, where she broke out in tears. We can easily imagine the whispering among the ladies in full regalia waiting for the bride in the audience chamber.12 When Sisi finally joined the reception exhausted and unsteady, her face tear-stained, she provided new food for gossip. For she was too timid to make conversation with each of the ladies presented to her. According to protocol, however, no one was allowed to speak to the Empress except to reply to questions. A most awkward situation, which Countess Esterházy finally salvaged by requesting the ladies to address a few words to the Empress.

  And the worst was yet to come. When Sisi caught sight of her two cousins Adelgunde and Hildegard from Bavaria among the huge crowd of strangers, she refused them the obligatory kiss on the hand, wishing to hug them instead. When the outraged expressions around her told her that once again she had committed an error, she defended herself: “But we are cousins!” Archduchess Sophie could not, of course, accept this reason for an offense against protocol; she reminded Sisi of her exalted position and insisted that the protocol—that is, the kiss on the hand of the Empress—be observed.13

  The first causes of conflict in the imperial family could not be overlooked. The differences in the couple’s lives up to that time were too great. To Franz Joseph and his mother, the rigid formality was a matter of everyday practice, even indispensable to demonstrating the power of the crown. That the young Empress would have to learn to accustom herself to the ceremonial was a matter of course. Most young girls would gladly have accepted this magnificent burden, even enjoyed it.

  Elisabeth, however, had inherited the Wittelsbach family traits to an extreme degree: high intelligence coupled with an excessive sensibility and a strong desire for freedom. Until this time, she had been able to develop her natural tendencies freely and had had practically no obligations imposed on her. And with the exception of the household help, she had never actually seen anyone work. As far as her father, Max, was concerned, as a general, he was a member of the Bavarian army; but this position by no means took up much of his time or energies. He lived on a generous grant of 250,000 guldens a year, neglected his family and paternal obligations, and did only what he felt like doing. A sixteen-year-old girl from such a background could hardly be faulted for lacking a sense of duty.

  Titles, honors, money—these were concepts that held no meaning for young Elisabeth. She was made entirely of feeling, and her childish imagination had none but purely sentimental expectations of her future marriage. A rude awakening in Vienna was only too inevitable.

  The exertions of the wedding-day protocol ended with the illumination of the “capital and residence”—an obligatory part of all the most exalted festivities. Great crowds came from the outskirts to the inner city to witness this popular display. One chronicler reported that “the area around the gates was constantly enveloped in dense clouds of dust, caused by the movement of so many thousands.” The most magnificent illuminations were in Kohlmarkt and Michaelerplatz, where the open two-horse carriage bearing the young couple appeared in the course of the evening. “It seemed that the entire street had been transformed into a ballroom.”14

  Connoisseurs of the situation at court, however, noticed that even on this wedding day not everything was as rosy as it seemed. One eyewitness, Baron Karl Kübeck, wrote in his diary on April 24, “On the podium and among the spectators, jubilation and expectant joy. Behind the scenes, increasingly somber, very somber signs.”15

  A gala banquet t
ook place between ten and eleven o’clock at night. Only then did the public festivities end. Sophie: “Louise [Ludovika] and I led the young bride to her rooms. I left her with her mother and stayed in the small room next to the bedroom until she was in bed. Then I fetched my son and led him to his young wife, whom I saw once more, to wish her a good night. She hid her pretty face, surrounded by the masses of her beautiful hair, in her pillow, as a frightened bird hides in its nest.”16

  This coucher, normally attended with great ceremony, was, in court terms, decidedly familial and intimate. Other bridal couples at other European courts had to suffer a great deal more protocol in equivalent situations. King Johann of Saxony, for example, wrote about his bridal night with Sisi’s Aunt Amalie: “All the married princesses and their chatelaines escorted the bride home, assisted at her toilet, and said a prayer, whereupon she was taken to her bed. Now the bride’s chatelaine had the job of informing me that I could come in. Accompanied by all the married princes, I entered the bedroom and had to get into bed in the presence of all these princes, princesses, and ladies. When the families and their entourages had left, I arose again to make my actual night toilet.”17 In the case of the young Emperor and his bride, the two mothers rejected those ceremonies that were too complicated and too embarrassing. But even the little that remained was too much for the sensitive girl after such a strenuous day.